Music Flashmob: Verdi, La Traviata

Flash mob in Amsterdam department store De Bijenkorf. The music is from Giuseppe Verdi's (1813 - 1901) opera La Traviata. From Dutch TV program NTR Podium (2-10-2011).

Movie: Twelve Years a Slave

British director Steve McQueen adapts Solomon Northup's remarkable account of being kidnapped and sold into slavery for a dozen years in the middle of the 19th century. The material is inherently suspenseful and harrowing, since Northup provides a detailed account of slavery's brutal nature in the Deep South. But it's Fassbender's penchant for creating disquieting atmosphere that's well positioned to make this spectacular survival tale come to life and possibly provide one of the more accurate recreations of slavery life in America. (Take that, "Django Unchained." [Eric Kohn, indiewire.com]

Friday Nite Videos -- May 24, 2013

Portside
'Beginning of End' of War on Terror. 'I Will Surive' Muslim Brotherhood. Flashmob: Verdi. Movie: Twelve Years a Slave. Polio's Moving Target.

Bittorrent's Direct to Fan Collaboration

Bittorrent Blog
We used to buy music at independent record shops downtown. We shopped the chain mega-stores that took their place. When these moved online, in the form of iTunes or Amazon, we were there, wallets out. For fifty years, the path to purchase has essentially been the same. Go to the physical/digital record store, buy an album. But what if the record store was inside the album instead? Bittorrent Bundle lets people connect directly with their audience, on their terms.

Boy Scouts: You Can Be Gay Until You Turn 18

Dana Liebelson Mother Jones
The Boy Scouts of America has adopted a new policy, which kicks in January 1, that makes it so that member troops can no longer discriminate against gay youth. But anyone who is gay and over 18 years old still won't be allowed to be a Scout leader or volunteer.

Does Raising the Minimum Wage Cost Jobs?

Dave Johnson Our Future
A quick point on whether the minimum wage “costs jobs.” Here is the reality: The minimum wage is now the lowest it has been in decades. In fact, 40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage, if that wage had kept pace with productivity increases.

Newcomers Change Face of Southern Politics

Chris Kromm Institute for Southern Studies
If current trends hold, all Southern states will be transformed in some way by the changing blend of Southerners, new and old.